Better, Not Bigger: How To Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community [Paperback]

Eben V. Fodor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0865713863 | ISBN-13: 978-0865713864

Contrary to accepted wisdom, rapid urban growth can leave communities permanently scarred, deeply in debt, with unaffordable housing, a lost sense of community, and sacrificed environmental quality. In this book, Fodor explodes the fundamental myth that growth is good for us and that more development will bring in more tax money, add jobs, lower housing costs, and reduce property taxes. Lively and well-illustrated, Better NOT Bigger provides insights, ideas, and tools to empower citizens to switch off their local "growth machine" by debunking the pro-growth rhetoric. Highly accessible to ordinary citizens as well as professional planners.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eben Fodor has a background in renewable energy, specializing in high efficiency passive solar heating systems and solar-heated saunas. His professional work is as a community planning consultant based in Eugene, Oregon

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865713863
• ISBN-13: 978-0865713864
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fodor doesn't offer any viable solutions, October 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Better, Not Bigger: How To Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community (Paperback)

I have read many books on the subject of tackling suburban sprawl. Although the solutions offered by these books vary, they can be summarized as such: (1) Limit sprawl in rural areas and redirect it to higher-density redevelopment of existing urban and suburban areas. (2) Provide a viable alternative to automobile dependency in the form of walkable communities and quality public transit. Fodor ignores these solutions and instead proposes that individual communities should banish all growth from their jurisdictions. This is an easy trap to fall into, since for the last 50 years, most growth has been in the suburban sprawl mold, which is profitable for developers but generally damaging to communities and the environment. What Fodor fails to mention is that stopping growth in "your community" creates more sprawl in rural areas where there are fewer protesting residents. This growth will likely be of a lower density, and more car-dependant than the growth you had banished from "your community". If you want a more far-sighted view of what to do about suburban sprawl, read J.H. Kunstler's "The Geography of nowhere", or Newman & Kenworthy's "Sustainability and Cities".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully Insightful, June 13, 2006

By 

Will Winn (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Better, Not Bigger: How To Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community (Paperback)

Mr. Fodor has done an excellent job of exposing the ins and outs of urban planning and growth. His sources are prolific and complete with a well balanced presentation of the challenges of growth and development to any community. For me, this book was a "suspicions confirmed" expose' of why it becomes so much more expensive to live in a city. This book is an excellent read with many interesting case studies, charts, analyses, and graphics and I have reviewed it and quoted it often as I have prepared to address our local planning commission and city council. Most of my urban planning and growth questions were addressed in this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Debunking of the Pro-Growth Myths, March 24, 2006

By 

N. Lynch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Better, Not Bigger: How To Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community (Paperback)

The public has come to accept growth as natural, or at least inevitable, as a result of unbalanced coverage in the media. Pro-growth forces, such as the building and real estate industries, are a significant source of advertising revenue, so there is little motivation to present alternative views. Fordor, in his book, presents carefully documented rebuttals to most of the common pro-growth arguments, making this an excellent book for readers who are concerned about environmental and municipal planning issues.